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Private businesses and individual employers will get a tax break if they pay their employees end-of-year bonuses of EC$250 or more, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has announced.

Employees will not be taxed on the first EC$250 on any bonus that they receive, said Gonsalves, who is also Minister of Finance.

“A private company or any private employer who gives a bonus up to 250 dollars — they can give more …, that worker will not have to pay any tax on that bonus, which means they will save 60-something dollars.

“If they get a bonus of 500, they will pay tax on the second 250 but not on the first 250,” Gonsalves said Wednesday on his new radio programme, “Ask Prime Minister”.

“And, for the employer, to encourage the employer, half of that 250 — the first 250 — will go as a tax credit towards the company or the individual’s tax, the corporate tax, for the business,” he said.

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He described the tax breaks as “quite a concession”.

Gonsalves said that Anthony “Tony” Regisford, executive director of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, is “ecstatic” about the policy.

“He loves it,” Gonsalves said of Regisford.

“I have talked to several companies, they love it. I mean, I would tell you that Joel Providence of Coreas, he said, ‘Prime Minister, this is very encouraging.‘ I think they are giving about 300 persons bonuses,” Gonsalves said.

The Prime Minister noted that his government will this month pay out EC$3.5 million in wages to road workers.

“We are power washing the market,” he said of the Central Market in Kingstown, adding, “So, the state is doing a number of things.”

 

2 replies on “Firms to get tax break if they pay Christmas bonus”

  1. Dr. Dexter Lewis says:

    Is the Executive director of the Chamber so empty-headed that he cannot recognize a fakery when he is presented with one?

    Does he not recall the PM saying to the Teachers Union that whatever he agreed with them just before the last elections do not now hold because such promises are against the constitution?

    Further, does he not realize that the PM could not do legislation outside of Parliament? If there are no laws on the books in respect to “tax breaks” then his membership can expect none. None.

    Same thing goes for the Petro Caribe “agreement”: since it did not go through Parliament it has no binding force of law.

    None. It is just political games to catch the unweary.

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